This has been an interested year for weather in Korea. You might remember this blog post about the major snow storm we had here. Well, this month Mother Nature has had all kinds of fun. At the beginning of the month we had Typhoon Kompasu hit us. A category 1 storm, with winds up to 91 mph. It was very early in the morning (maybe 5am) when it came across Seoul. It woke me up, and I couldn't go back to sleep because of the noise. The windows were rattling and shaking pretty hard, and I thought for sure that our satellite dish would fly off the side of the bldg. However, we never lost power (just internet for about 4 days), and there was no damage around our neighborhood, other than a whole bunch of leaves and small branches blown down. In fact, during the worst of the storm, I looked out our window and saw a couple of people walking around down on the street below. So my conclusion was that the typhoon wasn't that big of a deal....until we went on base. The base got hit pretty hard, I assume because it has so many trees, and it doesn't have a bunch of high rises to protect them. There were about 300 trees on base that were either uprooted or broken in half. There were power lines down all over, and some people didn't have power for over a week (some were moved into hotels). There were broken windows, and other damage. Elsewhere in Korea, there was also damage, and three people were killed. Here are some pictures from on-base (I did not take these pictures).
An uprooted tree also uprooted this concrete staircase that was next to it.
I thought this was funny - someone used some broken up curb to put a cross next to this uprooted tree.
This is a Black Angus restaurant that had some damage.
We saw several trees like this that had been whipped around in the wind. They weren't uprooted or broken, but they left big holes next to the trunks.
Next up was the crazy rain we got this week. On Tuesday we got 10 or 11 inches (different sources said different numbers) of rain in 6 hrs. - it was crazy! Right during the middle of it, I had to go down and pick up the kids from the bus stop. Luckily, Joe was home early, so I didn't have to bring Alex down with me. The bus was 1/2 hr. LATE! (I didn't know why at the time, but it was because of flooding on base). The rain was coming down sooooo hard. I was soaking wet from my thighs down. My umbrella held up for almost 20 minutes, but then it just couldn't take it anymore, and it started raining on me underneath the umbrella. When the kids finally got there, they were soaking wet on the bottom of their legs too, and begging me to play in the rain. I don't ever let them play in the rain here like I did in Texas, because the air is so dirty here. But I figured we were all wet anyway, so what the heck. They had a blast.
One of Madelyn's sandals almost floated away down the gutter.
Again, this freak rain storm did not affect us much, other than full gutters and the need for baths. It was a completely different story on base. There was major flooding on parts of base. Here are some pictures (again, I did not take these). This is a street, not a river:)
Here's the street in front of the middle school. The further you go down the street, the deeper the water is, which is in front of the elementary school. These roads were closed off, which made it interesting for parents picking up kids from school.
The sewers filled up fast and couldn't contain all the water. Manhole covers were lifted up and off.
This is the parking lot by the bus station. We are sooooooo glad that Joe did not drive the car to the bus station to go to work that day.
Here is that same parking lot a couple of hrs. later. You can just see the tops of those cars. Tragic.
There was flooding all around Seoul, but I don't know the full extent of the damage, other then that 12,000 people had to evacuate their houses, and a lot of people lost power, and 1 person died. The aftermath was a little ugly on base.
On the wall in front of this truck (below), you can see a sign in the background - it says "Flood Area".
Anybody need a raft?
Okay Mother Nature, what's next?
We went there when we first moved here a year ago (yes, it's been a year). I told Joe we should go once a year - he can't handle anything more than that, and in reality thinks that once a year is A LOT. But it was a good thing we went, because they had this new display.
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